Drury, Gomez, and Redden say hello - 3 of the worst contracts in pro sports history.
All-Encompassing Tortorella/Sather Thread
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Drury, Gomez, and Redden say hello - 3 of the worst contracts in pro sports history.
I was just about to bring this up. Calling sather an Elite GM post lockout is ridiculous. In my short life, he is the single worst thing to happen to this organization not named Dolan.
The only thing I'll give Sather credit for is bringing in competent hockey minds like Jeff Gorton and, to a lesser degree, Gordie Clark. The other credit goes to the salary cap, which forced Sather's hand to begin developing some talent.
Misreading those teams from the Jagr era, thinking they could compete for a cup, and adding the final pieces of Drury and Gomez was a monumental blunder that goes well beyond any positive things Sather has done post-lockout.
Saw someone post this on another Rangers forum, interesting points:
The point?
The Rangers have a better record playing Torts' style than when they're not.
I know I'm someone who has suggested he be fired, but these stats definitely made me do a double take. Sometimes the eyes aren't flawless.
Also, we SERIOUSLY need to be better on the road. 11 goals in 7 gamesGaborik has 0 goals and 1 assist in 7 road games. Richards has 1 goal and 2 assists.
32 goals in 11 home games. Pretty good offensive numbers, like 2.95 GPG.
Unless Tortorella's style is "score more goals" then I think the correlation is a stretch. They're #1 in league in goals against on the road with 18 scored. I think the 11 goals and 7.7% PP on the road tells the real story. Team just can't generate any offense and struggles to get into the game mentally. That, IMO, isn't a system issue. It's a compete level issue.
Kel Varnsen
Below: Nash's Heart
- Sep 27, 2009
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Gomez gave us 70 pts, 58 pts and McD
Conclusion: Happy we gave him the deal
Drury gave us 58 pts, 56 pts, before dropping all the way to 32 pts and then 5 pts in 25 games
So two solid years, two bad. He also gave us his heat and soul when he was here, he was the captain for a bit. Cally has many times credited Drury with bringing him along. So all in all, yeah it was too much money, but did it really prevent us from anything? I'm not sure that it did.
Conclusion: All in all, not a good deal. But not as bad as people often talk about it. Alright.
Redden, yeah this one sucked. But did it prevent us from doing anything? Again, I'm not too sure that it did. We buried him in the minors. It's Dolan's money, so whatever.
Conclusion: Bad contract, minimal impact on the team however. And find me a GM who spends money and doesn't have a bad contract ever. Hell, even teams that don't spend money have them (Icelanders DP?).
So, yeah these deals get way more **** than they should.
Kel Varnsen
Below: Nash's Heart
- Sep 27, 2009
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Guess it depends on how many you want to include in the "elite" category. Is Joe Flacco elite? Can you produce a list of all the GMs who have been better post lockout? I'd find that interesting, I don't think it'll be as easy as you think to make.
I'd say that the shows they run in Detroit, Nashville, Philly and Pittsburgh are much better than anything Sather has amassed.
Hell, look no further than across the pond at Lou. Sather has improved massively in recent years, I will give you that and I'm even content with him as of right now, but he made some serious gaffes that placed us amongst the laughing stocks of the league.
NYR Sting
Heart and Soul
By this logic, you should also be happy for the mess that Bob Gainey's life became. I mean, maybe if he doesn't lose his daughter in an incredibly bizarre and unfortunate manner, he doesn't succumb to the pressure that forced an otherwise semi-competent man to make one of the worst transactions in the history of the NHL, achieving lows that only Mike Milbury and Glen Sather transactions usually do (like the signing of Scott Gomez by Sather).
And if that move doesn't happen, that incredible stroke of good luck in Sather's favor . . . is "ALS" Sather even any different from "BLS" Sather at all?
Amusing, because I recall you trashing Drury and questioning his heart and soul (maybe I'm thinking of someone else). As one of the few supporters of Drury here, I find this to be absurd. I love Drury, and consider him one of my favorite players of all-time. His tenure with the Rangers was a disaster. Not because of Chris Drury, mind you, but because he was drastically overpaid and expected by the geniuses that acquired him to fill a role he was completely wrong for.
Yes, let's bring up the widely-accepted worst GM of all-time to make your argument. Why don't you find a GM that spends money and makes as many mistakes as Sather? Because I can name you a number of GMs that have achieved just as much success, if not more, without ever having to rely on luxuries and resources they don't have to get out of an endless stream of huge errors in judgment.
These are three of the worst transactions in NHL history. Redden and Gomez are probably the two worst unrestricted free agent contracts ever handed out, and only the DP contract is worse than them in the realm of contracts in general.
To respond to your previous post, one year of success does not make up for 12 years of no success. If you consider 2006-2011 as success, then you have very low standards. I've been a diehard fan since 1993. Playoffs or not, 2007-2010 are easily my least favorite years as a Ranger fan. The team was, except for 3-4 players, unwatchable. It was some of the worst hockey I've ever had the misfortune of watching. The team was mediocre at best, and again, was saved from this hell in large part thanks to the incredible luck of Bob Gainey losing his mind.
Want to discuss the drafting? 13 years, not a single first line forward. No legit 1st line centers. I know Rick Nash has been playing very well for about a week now, but Rick Nash is not one of the top 5 forwards in the league. He's not one of the top 10 forwards in the league. IMO, he's not one of the top 15 forwards in the league. But he's one of the top 5 highest-paid players in the league, and his contract still has five years left on it. Richards not a great contract. But that's what happens when you don't draft and develop your own franchise players.
The jury is still out on Kreider and McIlrath.
So, yeah, I don't think "BLS" Glen Sather is all that different from "ALS" Sather.
Kel Varnsen
Below: Nash's Heart
- Sep 27, 2009
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Pittsburgh fell ass backwards into Crosby and Malkin, they drafted in the top five for like a decade. They're management has been incompetent. No way I'd put them above Post lockout Sather. Detroit I'll 100% give you. Probably Philly as well. Devils are interesting when you restrict it to post lockout, only because so much of their post lockout success is attributable to pre lockout moves. Nashville, debatable. I don't think they've been better.
A lot of this also has to do with how heavily you weigh a cup, how heavily you weigh missing the playoffs, how heavily you weigh luck. So very subjective. So the most simple claim is that Post Lockout Sather has been great for this team.
Yes, if you're lazy and dont really want to think about it, I suppose that is the simple claim.
Kel Varnsen
Below: Nash's Heart
- Sep 27, 2009
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So bad that the net consequence was nothing to extremely positive.
The lockout isn't 12 or 13 years old. Strawman someone else Stingman.
Kel Varnsen
Below: Nash's Heart
- Sep 27, 2009
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Looks to be right up your alley considering you ignored all of what I wrote leading up to that.
I've been critical of the draft but from where we have drafted we've done alright . Would only want Montoya , Jessiman and possibly Mcilrath back .
Hagelin , Callahan , Staal , MDZ , JT , Step , all 2nd line players with first line ability. Hard to get generational all star forwards where we have drafted . The huge blunder being Jessiman and Montoya anyway and I guess Tarasenko
Hagelin , Callahan , Staal , MDZ , JT , Step , all 2nd line players with first line ability. Hard to get generational all star forwards where we have drafted . The huge blunder being Jessiman and Montoya anyway and I guess Tarasenko
Not forgetting Hank because he's up there with Datsyuk as pure divine intervention from some sort of higher power
Thats the (seriously flawed) point you're trying to make, isnt it? That Sather has been an elite GM post-lockout?
Great post. I still can't believe there are Ranger's fans that support anything that Sather has done(or hasn't done) for this franchise.
He should have been "fired" prior to the lockout and it is unheard of for any GM to be completing their 13th year with such a "miserable" record!
Kel Varnsen
Below: Nash's Heart
- Sep 27, 2009
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That's such an easy point to make and nobody denies that. Sting always comes in here with Sather stuff and (very nicely I'll admit) lines up all the bad from pre-lockout and acts like he's arguing someone. He never is. 99.99999999999% of the world agrees Sather should have been fired pre-lockout.
However, the discerning among us can recognize the great job the man has done SINCE THEN. And neither Sting nor anyone else ever makes a good argument as to why judging ONLY on post lockout than man deserves to be fired. Never.
NYR Sting
Heart and Soul
No more bizarre than your attempt to try and use the chance, incredibly lucky turn of events that saw Gainey succumb to some absurd pressure to get a center as justifying a complete and utter failure on the part of Sather to evaluate talent, conceive lineup combinations, and mishandle his team's budget.
No, actually, because if Gomez isn't traded for McDonagh, then the team would have had a major cap problem, and the defense would be a lot more suspect.
I'm almost positive that it was, and when I have the time, I'll prove that. Regardless, that wasn't really the point. The point that you aren't responding to, which is that Drury was a disaster. The point that post-lockout Sather again displayed a total failure in evaluating talent and as a budget manager. That this man somehow confused a third line center who picked up garbage goals on a talent-studded power play unit for a second line center that deserved to be paid like a first line center.
Talk about strawman arguments, LOL. Of course, we shouldn't apologize for using our resources. There is nothing real about how you are looking at this, though; if there was, you wouldn't be trying to play it off like Sather has been using his MASSIVE advantage in resources over more than two-thirds of the teams in the league to garner success (there'd be no problem if that was the case). The reality, which you so conveniently fail to acknowledge, is that Sather has used said advantage just to keep pace with all of those teams. As already established, Sather has achieved NO success. He needs these numerous advantages just to keep the team from going under, since Sather has achieved no more success than any GM, and certainly less than some.
And this is the crux of the issue: despite having every advantage available, the best Sather has done since the lockout is mediocrity. He has used this advantage to achieve nothing but a crutch to keep himself from tripping over his own litany of mistakes. Yet you posit that he is an elite post-lockout GM?
If Sather had used these resources to accomplish something of note, then Sather would have done his job in a meritorious fashion. Instead, Sather has used these resources just to keep himself from being a total failure in every regard.
Your entire position is a strawman. You haven't answered or refuted a single point I made. I ask you, once again, to name ONE GM other than Mike Milbury that has failed as often as Sather with as many advantages as Sather has. Keeping in mind, of course, that Sather has achieved NO success to date. None.
I already have. That's why you haven't refuted any point I've made (the drafting, for example, and how that forces Sather to attach himself to bad contracts like Richards and Nash). The last word I'd use to describe your stance on this topic (or really, any topic concerning this team) is discerning. Savvy trading, you said. Like Tyutin for Zherdev, right? Or Lisin for Korpikoski? Rozsival for Wolski? Dupuis for Bourret? The Matt Cullen contract and subsequent trade of him for scraps? He's made some good moves, he's also made a number of bad/terrible ones. If you're going to try and give him credit for someone else making the dumbest move EVER in taking Gomez off of his hands, then you need to look at the moves Sather made where incredible good fortune didn't play a role in helping him out of a jam.
Sather should have been fired not just after the lockout. He should have been fired in 2007. He should have been fired in 2008. He should have been fired in 2009, 2010, and 2011. That's the reality of it: he has one season of notable success. One. And if the playoffs started today, the Rangers would be on the outside looking in. Do I think that will be the case at the end of the season? No, but if the Rangers don't get out of the second round this year, then this will be yet another season of mediocrity.
Kel Varnsen
Below: Nash's Heart
- Sep 27, 2009
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Im convinced Sather never watched Drury, Redden, Gaborik, Kotalik, Mccabe, Backman, and a few others play before acquiring them.
What a clown.
What a clown.
Forgot about McCabe. That was a **** trade but we really didn't give up anything. It was worth the shot.
NYR Sting
Heart and Soul
JESSEWENEEDTOCOOK
Twenty f*ckin years
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If anything, Gaborik is the ONLY competent big free agent signing Sather has made (well, Richards signing made sense, his play this season though is making it look potentially disastrous).
Then again, I would have preferred to go into 09-10 without Gaborik and sign Kovalchuk in the 2011 offseason - he definitely would have signed here if we went after him hard enough. Oh well, hindsight is 20/20.
NYR Sting
Heart and Soul
Not really. Everyone knew Kovalchuk was going to be a free agent. There were reports out of Russia that virtually guaranteed he would be as much as two years beforehand. It was another blunder by Sather. Not because Gaborik has been bad, but because he's no Kovalchuk. Better, more dynamic, less injury prone player with a smaller cap hit. And he wanted to come to the Rangers.
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